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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 29, 2009 17:09:32 GMT -5
I kept thinking that Caulfield had to be an ironic character, because there's no way that anyone could find him even remotely likeable, right? Yep. That's the only reason that book is interesting. People who think you're supposed to find Caulfield to be someone to relate to are either stupid or just as adolescently self-absorbed as he is. Salinger wrote it as a dark comedy, methinks.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 29, 2009 17:24:00 GMT -5
But I don't think it's always laziness. It can also happen when you're made to read a book that you're just not ready for. I mean in terms of maturity or intelligence, or even having an adequate knowledge of the historical background to have a sense of the author's world. That's fair enough. I disagree with you there. I think it's important to let yourself be challenged and to plow through something you don't initially like. I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along. You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way. So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you. Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Jul 29, 2009 18:56:33 GMT -5
The only classic I can't stand is The Faerie Queene by Spenser. What a load of crap that is. Who in their right mind would ever find that lyrical mess compelling or even interesting? Hi Mummi. Nice to see you again.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 29, 2009 19:45:21 GMT -5
The only classic I can't stand is The Faerie Queene by Spenser. What a load of crap that is. Who in their right mind would ever find that lyrical mess compelling or even interesting? Hi Mummi. Nice to see you again. Don't make me get any more crotchety and pretentious than I'm already am!
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Jul 29, 2009 23:39:53 GMT -5
I disagree with you there. I think it's important to let yourself be challenged and to plow through something you don't initially like. I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along. You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way. So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you. Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible. Hmmm, you must be less crotchety than you seem. Or maybe I'm just more stubborn. Once I get forced to study a book I don't like, I develop a strong antipathy for it, and often for the author too. As for Gertrude Stein, I know what's she's trying to do. I just find her way of doing it to be seriously irritating. To be fair, this is one of those cases where knowing less about what the author was like might have helped. As I said earlier, authors who believed themselves to be geniuses of perception, and who have convinced literary critics of the same thing, bug me. Those squares really bug me.
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Post by Fred Burroughs on Jul 29, 2009 23:50:36 GMT -5
But I don't think it's always laziness. It can also happen when you're made to read a book that you're just not ready for. I mean in terms of maturity or intelligence, or even having an adequate knowledge of the historical background to have a sense of the author's world. That's fair enough. I disagree with you there. I think it's important to let yourself be challenged and to plow through something you don't initially like. I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along. You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way. So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you. Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible. I've never agreed with the idea of "acquired taste" especially when it comes to alcohol. Why waste time and money trying to make yourself like something that you don't? You almost never really like it, you just become used to it, there's a difference. Now with that said you should always truly try something before making your mind up, but once it's made up there's no use forcing the issue. I'm very much a person who believes on calling a spade a spade. If I don't like something that I've actually tried then I will say so. Now I try not to disrespect those who do like it.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 29, 2009 23:55:05 GMT -5
I've never agreed with the idea of "acquired taste" especially when it comes to alcohol. Why waste time and money trying to make yourself like something that you don't? You almost never really like it, you just become used to it, there's a difference. Now with that said you should always truly try something before making your mind up, but once it's made up there's no use forcing the issue. I'm very much a person who believes on calling a spade a spade. If I don't like something that I've actually tried then I will say so. Now I try not to disrespect those who do like it. Maybe I just set the bar pretty high for what counts as "truly trying" something before dismissing it. I'm also someone who gets bored easily with the same old thing. I'm always amazed, for example, at friends I know who were reading certain kinds of books when we were in high school and who are still basically just reading the same thing. It's one thing to say that you know already what you like and don't like. It's another thing to just be in a rut and a creature of habit.
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Post by Fred Burroughs on Jul 29, 2009 23:57:30 GMT -5
I've luckily found that I'm not easily bored at all. I have friends that become bored after 5 minutes of doing something and I've never gotten that.
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Post by glowgirl004 on Jul 30, 2009 0:23:54 GMT -5
ANYTHING by Hemingway. I couldn't even finish A Farewell to Arms in high school, I hated it so much. I BS'ed my way through the paper we had to write, and I still ended up with a B- for reading half the book heh.
I usually didn't mind the required stuff I had to read, some of my favorite books/plays came from that (Wuthering Heights, A Streetcar Named Desire, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc). What I didn't like was how over-analyzing some books turned me off them for awhile. Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass is one of my all-time favorites, but picking it apart to the very smallest detail in 11th grade made me sick of it and it was awhile before I read it again.
That being said, there were books I hated that I had to read for class: -Ethan Frome -Heart of Darkness -All My Sons -Our Town
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Post by callipygias on Jul 30, 2009 8:52:25 GMT -5
People who think you're supposed to find Caulfield to be someone to relate to are either stupid or just as adolescently self-absorbed as he is. That's quite an opinion. I'll assume it's put that way for shock value.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 30, 2009 9:36:04 GMT -5
People who think you're supposed to find Caulfield to be someone to relate to are either stupid or just as adolescently self-absorbed as he is. That's quite an opinion. I'll assume it's put that way for shock value. Yep. But it's also what I really think. ;D But snarkiness aside, I've known a lot of people who read the book when they were young and saw him as a cool rebel. Then they got older, read it again, and found him to be incredibly self-absorbed. Whatever else it says, it shows that when you read a book can have quite a lot of power over your evaluation of it. ...which, to return to my earlier ramblings, is an even better reason to give something you once hated another chance, rather than be shackled by outdated opinions.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jul 30, 2009 19:15:44 GMT -5
I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along.
You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way.
So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you.
Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible.[
I have two problems with writers who write in such a way as to make it difficult to understand just to make it challenging.
What other field does this? I've invented a new mathematics, it doesn't solve any problem that the old math can solve and its much more difficult to learn but its challenging. How can understanding a book that is intentionally written to be difficult to understand rewarding? It's different if its a book like Beowolf or Shakespere where it is difficult to understand because it was written for an audience hundreds of years ago. They weren't intended to be difficult. People say scientist do this but they are writing to other scientists. Specialized writing is designed to avoid confusion among specialists.
The second problem is that students are taught that good writing is very difficult to understand. If its easy to understand, its lousy writing. These people then get a job writing the instructions on programing your DVD burner that are almost impossible to understand.
Books don't always have to be fun to be useful but they should at least be interesting. I agree that you need to be ready to read a book. I've tried to read War and Peace a few times and never got past a couple of chapters. I've just started it again after reading a history book about the Nepolionic wars and I'm finding it really interesting now.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jul 30, 2009 20:10:34 GMT -5
I've never agreed with the idea of "acquired taste" especially when it comes to alcohol. Why waste time and money trying to make yourself like something that you don't? You almost never really like it, you just become used to it, there's a difference. Now with that said you should always truly try something before making your mind up, but once it's made up there's no use forcing the issue.
I'm very much a person who believes on calling a spade a spade. If I don't like something that I've actually tried then I will say so. Now I try not to disrespect those who do like it. [/quote][/sup]
Some foods take twenty or thirty times before you get used to them. I didn't like a lot of foods the first 20 times I ate them and now they're some of my favorite foods. A lot of kids need to be exposed to foods many times. You don't want to have a kid eat nothing but Mac and cheese 3 meals a day 7 days a week because they don't like anything else.
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Post by Fred Burroughs on Jul 31, 2009 8:36:23 GMT -5
I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along.
You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way.
So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you.
Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible.[I have two problems with writers who write in such a way as to make it difficult to understand just to make it challenging. What other field does this? I've invented a new mathematics, it doesn't solve any problem that the old math can solve and its much more difficult to learn but its challenging. How can understanding a book that is intentionally written to be difficult to understand rewarding? It's different if its a book like Beowolf or Shakespere where it is difficult to understand because it was written for an audience hundreds of years ago. They weren't intended to be difficult. People say scientist do this but they are writing to other scientists. Specialized writing is designed to avoid confusion among specialists. The second problem is that students are taught that good writing is very difficult to understand. If its easy to understand, its lousy writing. These people then get a job writing the instructions on programing your DVD burner that are almost impossible to understand. Books don't always have to be fun to be useful but they should at least be interesting. I agree that you need to be ready to read a book. I've tried to read War and Peace a few times and never got past a couple of chapters. I've just started it again after reading a history book about the Nepolionic wars and I'm finding it really interesting now. Something tells me that English teachers are putting some revisionist history on some of these books. Instead of admitting that they aren't as good as they thought, they try to pass if off as if the author made it that way on purpose to "challenge" us. Kind of like how Tommy Wiseau now tries to say he meant The Room to be an unintentional comedy all along...even though that's obviously not true.
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Post by stevehadcrackers on Jul 31, 2009 17:02:25 GMT -5
My English teacher never presented Holden Caulfield as ironic. I suppose a lot of the way you react to the books you read in school has to do with the way the teacher interprets them. In my experience, we were never supposed to have our own take on a book; rather, we were meant to see them the way the teacher presented them, which always bugged me. Therefore I was told that my take on Catcher In The Rye was "wrong." I remember my teacher talling me that he was surprised I didn't like the book; he thought I'd like Holden because he was cynical and rebellious like me.
If Catcher was meant to be ironic (I find the way Holden was always obsessed with "phonies" to be rather phony in itself) then I might be able to maybe not hate the book quite as much. But I still wouldn't like it because it's a pain in the ass to read.
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